Some 450 light-years from Earth, embryonic planets may be feeding tendrils of gas to the newborn star they orbit. The discovery helps explain how a young star can grow even as budding planets suck up much of the gas and dust around it. Without the tendrils replenishing it, the star's supply of gas would disappear in less than a year... They think a big budding planet - something like Jupiter in its very early days - might orbit its star at about 90 times the Earth-sun distance, clearing out a gap like a snowplow shoveling roads... More intriguingly, denser gas formed several filaments stretching across the gap. These streamers are almost certainly guided and shaped by protoplanets embedded within them. The filaments are faint, says University of Hawaii astronomer Jonathan Williams, but 'my gut reaction is that their interpretation is probably correct and that this is an exciting result.

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